What's Important
by Tinkerpanda
Summary: When Wordy's daughters start fighting Sam steps forward to help remind them of what really matters in life.


_AN: Hey y'all. I just had this brainwave when I first saw the episode Acceptable Risk and hadn't had a chance to put it to words until today. Class ended early and I just felt the urge to get this story out. It's been gnawing. It's a shortie - a little one shot._

_It's not perfect - I don't know if you'll like/hate/love/loathe it. But I just wanted to get it up and done._

_I don't own Flashpoint. Or the moon or a million dollars. I now. Pretty upsetting really._

_**EDIT: Sorry about any confusion with the repost - I wanted to edit some grammatical/spelling problems and a couple some flow issues. And also, to fix some of the dialogue between the Wordsworth sisters. One of the reviews helped me realize that perhaps it wasn't as natural or real as it could be. I wanted to improve that, so hopefully I succeeded. I'm more satisfied with it the way it is now. Anyway thanks for understanding!**  
_

**...**

Five days. That's how long it had been since the shooting at the Royal Ontario Museum. Five long and arduous days. During those tediously lengthy days he'd sweated until he thought he'd drop of exhaustion, running until his muscles cramped with each stride and begged for relief. But he'd kept his punishing pace, circling the small and empty park near his house. He'd even taken a page out of Jules' home-renovation catalogue and re-tiled his bathroom. He'd lain awake at night and wondered what more he could have done. Ten dead. Ten. How many orphaned children? How many widows? How many desperately grieving parents? The simple answer was too many.

But the team had been cleared back to active duty. So tomorrow he'd put the cool pants on and the bullet proof vest. Back to business. Only a little more worn and weary than before.

He leaned forward in his lawn chair, staring moodily into his beer. He needed some time to lick his wounds, he supposed. To get contained. That day he'd felt that cool level of control slip a few inches. He'd told a complete stranger. He'd told her things about him that not even his team knew. He needed more time to reign in those painful memories. But life didn't always give you want you wanted or even what you needed. Sometimes you just had to roll with it.

So he found himself sitting in Wordy's backyard, sipping beer and listening to his teammates argue over preferred methods of barbecue. It was Dean's last night in town and Team One was determined to send him back to Texas in style, apparently. Even Sophie, now enormously pregnant, made a brief appearance with Clark in tow. God, the kid had grown. Sprouted up about three inches in the past year, Sam would venture a guess. Still hadn't grown into his feet, which were oafishly large. But he was a good kid.

There was a shriek of laughter as Wordy tossed his youngest daughter up. She screamed with joy as she tumbled back down through the air into his arms. That's what childhood was supposed to be about, Sam thought. About trust that somebody would catch you. It helped to remember that there was still good in the world. It helped to know that there would still be happiness and joy and love, even if he spent most of his time surrounded by chaos and pain and anger. Maybe somebody… he thought. Someday he'd come home to a rowdy roost of children. A wife. Somebody to love. Somebody to love him.

His thoughts were interrupted by two strained voices, pitching over the loud messy team exchanges. He glanced around, wondering if the others had noticed. Greg and Ed were far to engaged in their debate about gas and charcoal, Greg's hand resting lightly on his seated son's shoulder. Jules head was bent conspiratorially close to Sophie's and the two were giggling about something.

Rising to his feet he decided to investigate himself, slowly sauntering around the side of the house in the direction of the pair of voices.

Rounding the corner, he paused.

Lilly – Wordy and Shelley's youngest daughter – was thoroughly drenched, water dripping from the hem of her limp dress to the earth with sullen plops. The offending hose was firmly clenched in the small hands of her older sister Emily whose face was twisted in a mutinous frown.

"I told you to leave me alone." Emily hissed at her younger sister, whose lower lip began to quiver, clearly on the verge of tears. "You never do what I tell you!"

"I don't have to listen to you. You're not Mom." She sniffled miserably, voice quaking and crackling.

"Yeah, but I'm the _oldest_." Emily gave a self-satisfied smirk, crossing her arms and pushing out her chest.

_Oh yeah. Hadn't he used that line a few dozen million times with his own sister? I'm older. Smarter. Stronger. Faster. You'll always be second-best._ Silly, stupid little childish things.

"I don't care!" Lilly's shouted back, eyes flashing with anger behind the wall of tears. Sam stepped forward, set to intervene.

"You're just a stupid baby." Emily stuck her pert little nose in the air, smug grin firmly cemented onto her impish face.

"You don't have to be so mean!" Lilly said, her voice rising in a tell-tale sign of the sobbing that was sure to follow.

"Yeah I do. I gotta be mean to you 'cause I hate you." Emily's eyes narrowed as she angrily spat the words at her younger sister. Lilly, unable to contain herself any longer, threw herself on Emily, pulling and tugging and kicking until the two toppled to the ground in a blur of bright sunny sundresses and lightening quick limbs.

"Whoah there." Sam finally found his voice, reaching down to separate them. He managed to quickly extract Lilly, whose body still bucked and strained as she tried to grab at her sister's long braid of honey-coloured hair, just beyond her reach.

When she realized how futile it was she merely burrowed, sinking her head against Sam's shoulder and letting the sobs come.

"She sprayed me with the hose." She muttered pathetically against his chest, glittering wet eyes transfixed on his own. "I wasn't 'sposed to get wet. Mom said not to play with the hose while we had guests."

Over her shoulder Sam noted the embarrassed and, already, guilty look on Emily's face. The downturned lips and sullen eyes screamed of misery and regret.

"Tell you what, Lilly. You go get changed. Bring your dress back down and we'll throw it in the dryer. Emily, you'll tell your mom that she spilt juice on it and you took her inside to put on something clean. Nobody knows and nobody gets in trouble. It's like a secret." He set Lilly back on the ground giving her shoulder a pat before pointing at the side-door which he knew led off the kitchen. "Skiddadle kid. Get going."

She seemed to contemplate his offer for a moment, weighing the pleasure of getting her sister in trouble with the scolding she'd receive for getting wet and fighting with Emily. Sam held his breath a moment before she turned on her heel dashed indors, in the way that only children can, trauma of the fight quickly forgotten in the excitement of having a secret all her own – or nearly anyway.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked gently, perching on the stairs outside the kitchen, bringing him to eye level with Wordy's daughter.

She gave him a sulky shrug, foot tapping against the ground angrily. "She was bugging me."

"Yeah?" He asked. "You said some pretty mean things. You hurt her feelings."

"She never listens to me! She's just a dumb baby! She's always following me around and touching my stuff and going in my room without asking. And she's always trying to tag along with me and my friends! She embarrasses me!" Emily vented, her foot furiously pounding the muddy earth beneath her sandals.

Sam nodded. "Okay."

Clearly this wasn't what Emily had expected him to say. "Huh?" Her mouth fell open with surprise. "You're s'posed to say that I'm older so you expect better. And she follows me around and copies me and stuff because she wants to be like me and that it means she loves me and stuff."

"Yeah. Well. That's what my parents always said and it never made me feel all that much better. So why tell you, right?" Sam said, meeting her inquisitive and startled gaze. "It doesn't make it less frustrating, does it?"

"No." She admitted, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"My sister used to drive me nuts. She was always be getting into my stuff, breaking my toys, messing things up. She was always asking me to play – even when I didn't want to play with her. Always wanted to go the park and play on the swings. Even when I was busy she'd ask if I would take her to the park and push her. "

"Yeah?" Emily asked hopefully. So maybe he did understand.

"Sometimes I told her that I didn't want to play her. She was just a dumb kid. I didn't mean it though. I was just annoyed and embarrassed and I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to listen. I felt like I was a grown up and she was just some tag along. I wanted her to respect me and listen. When she didn't I'd get mad and say things to hurt her feelings. Even if they weren't true. "

Emily bit her lip. "I guess so." She hadn't meant to make her sister cry. She was just so damned _mad_.

"I remember I got this space-rocket when I turned nine. It was really cool. It was all painted up with stars – really shiny and sleek. It even had this launcher. I remember coming home from school one day and Sarah's got it on the back lawn and she's crying because she broke it. She just wanted to see it but she dropped it and one of the wings came off. I was so mad. I told her I'd hate her until the day she died." How he wished to this day that he could take back those ugly words. "The next week when I was taking her to that stupid park she was hit by a car."

Emily looked thunderstruck. "Did she die?"

"Yeah. Yeah she did." Sam said, having to swallow the massive lump in his throat. "I never got to fight with her again. Never got the chance to say that I loved her. That I was proud of her. That she was the best sister that a guy could ever want. I never got to see her grow up. I always wish that I'd noticed the car a moment earlier. If I'd seen it I could have pulled her back. And we could have had the rest of our lives to tease each other, and fight and play and get mad or whatever. But I didn't. So I don't get to do any of that with her."

Emily's eyes filled with the thought. Lilly was annoying sometimes, but her life wouldn't be the same without her. Lilly was her main confidant, her constant companion. They shared everything.

"I know you didn't mean what you said. You know. You should apologize to Lilly so she knows too." Sam suggested, gently clapping a hand over Emily's small, sagging shoulder. "It's never too late to say that you love somebody."

He heard the clunking of feet on stairs as Lilly clattered through the house. "Not exactly graceful is she?" He grinned at the watery-eyed Emily who bravely sniffled back a fresh wave of tears, trying to smile back at him. The porch door swung open abruptly, narrowly missing whacking Sam in the head. He was prompty handed Lilly's soggy dress. Glancing over her shoulder he noticed the visible trail of water leading through the kitchen and up the stairs. He sighed. Not one for subtlety, Lilly Wordsworth.

"Emily has something to say." He said quietly, directing the young girls' attention to her older sister who shifted uncomfortably, staring down at her feet.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled, struggling to swallow her pride. "You're not a stupid baby. I'm sorry." She repeated with more clarity. "I love you Lilly."

Lily look startled for a moment, eyes widening in confusion. Emily shifted uncomfortably. But Lily's face quickly parted in a massive, beaming smile which Emily tentatively returned. This time when Lily threw herself at her sister it was not in hate or anger, but in sisterly affection. Slinging an arm around each other the scrambled off to rejoin the party.

He stayed as he was a moment, sitting on the porch steps, soggy dress draped over the wooden planks beside him. He just needed a moment to breathe – just a moment to _be._ He'd be fine, he told himself. He just needed a moment. That's when he heard soft footsteps approach and a gentle hand press firmly against his shoulder.

"Heard them arguing. Mother's intuition." Shelley told him, her melodic voice laden with a kind of understanding and sympathy he just couldn't stand right now.

"You … you hear everything?" He asked, not meeting her eyes yet, gaze wandering, instead, to a planter of bright purple flowers. It seemed to burst with life, motley shades of plum and lilac and violet competing for room and attention. Purple had been Sarah's favourite colour. She'd been wearing a lavender barrette on the day he'd taken her to the park. He remembered it distinctly. One of those weird details that stuck in his head, he supposed. The purple clip perched jauntily on her pale blonde hair, the same exact colour of his, as she lay motionless on the black asphalt of the street.

He shook his head to try and clear the memory.

"Yes. I'm sorry about your sister. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you – for your family." She responded truthfully. "I just can't imagine losing any of them. They mean the world to me."

Sam couldn't summon the energy to speak so he merely nodded.

"I'm not ready to go back. I'm just going to take a minute. I don't want to go back there yet." _And face them all. _The people that knew him best. They'd read him like a book. And this was something he just needed to keep for himself for a while. He said calmly, hoping that Shelley would understand the request. She did, sitting down next to Sam and wrapping a friendly arm around his stiff shoulders. She stroked his hair, as a mother would a child. He felt strangely soothed, oddly calm as he hadn't in the days since the museum shootings.

"You must have loved Sarah very much." Shelley murmured.

"I did." He answered immediately. Frowned at the past tense. "I mean. I do. I was … I was good brother." He nodded sadly and slowly.

"Still are, if you ask me. Thank you. For reminding Emily of what's important." She rested a head on his shoulder. "Family's what's important."

**...**

_AN: Alright. Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think._


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